Spirit
by Ego And Psyche
Summary: AU: A collection of one-shots and shorts exploring what might have been for Hiroki and Akihiko. Done for a reader request.
1. Beautiful

_Spirit_

_One: Beautiful_

**[A/N] This is for Dash-san. Sorry it's later than I said it would be… you can consider it a gift for New Year's! :3 Hope you enjoy~**

**(Also. If any of you catch the line that I kinda-sorta whacked from The Dark Knight Rises, I will love you forever. xD)**

oOo

The leaves swirl lazily around them. Occasionally one will blow into Akihiko's face and he will brush it away with a long-suffering sigh; it will continue on its path, unperturbed, while he struggles to remember what he wants to write and fails. As he's been doing all day. He hasn't written a sensible word since the sun went up.

The sun now hangs in the sky, heavy and ripe and low behind the trees, casting a languid light into their clearing that produces no discernible shadows to be seen. Only a diffused sort of glow that seems to permeate everything in sight, dancing over the leaves, cloaking the warm brown eyes that gaze up at him.

_This place is beautiful. I love this place because it is beautiful._

Hiroki's eyes are wide and unabashedly curious. His gold-stroked hair waves about his face as he continues to observe Akihiko, lying flat on his back with face turned upwards in a way that can't possibly be comfortable. Akihiko has no clue why his friend is watching him, but he knows that if asks, the cheeks will flare up in a splash of color and the soft, pink-rimmed mouth will deny it immediately. He also _knows_ Hiroki's lips are soft because he felt them for himself once, years ago, pressed against his own lips—his impatient, uncontrollably greedy lips—and _knows_ exactly what shade of red the boy's face is wont to turn when embarrassed. Over the last year, he hasn't needed to watch as much as confirm; he knows Hiroki by heart.

_I love beautiful things._

_Do you think I can't feel your eyes on me?_

He's not at all prepared for the rough-edged voice and jerks visibly when Hiroki mumbles, "Hey, Akihiko?"

"Yeah?" Akihiko says, voice higher by several scales. Despite his still shaking body, he's thankful for the interruption; the very thought of tolerating that gaze in silence for another minute is near intolerable.

"I'm going to sleep", his friend says. A large-mouthed yawn follows—it's long and lazy and just a little too sincere to be true. _You hate yawning. You hate anything that keeps you from concentrating._ "Wake me up in a bit."

"Don't!"

Hiroki's response is swift. It's past his lips before Akihiko can gather his wits about himself, before he can wonder why he needs the boy to stay awake: "Then stop writing."

He doesn't want to ask why, too relieved at having a reason to give up for a while, but asks anyway.

"I'm bored. You get to write all you want; I need to wait 'til I have a new story." _Amuse me,_ Akihiko hears in the petulance underlining his voice. He smiles gently and snaps his notebook shut, unable to resist some banter. "If I write now, you get your story sooner, right?"

"Eh, shut up", Hiroki mumbles. His eyes finally leave the taller boy's face, searching for unseen things in the treetops above, and Akihiko is surprised by the warmth they take with them. It's like opening a door to taste the wind… despite his earlier discomfort, he's not sure how he likes this new nakedness.

He almost wishes Hiroki would look at him again.

_Beautiful things are loved._

He lets his own eyes rest on his friend's face for a burningly brief moment before sighing and looking away.

_I want you._ The words hurt just to think them, and yet…

_I want you._

_Want…_

"Talk", Hiroki says presently, still not looking at him. Still gazing at the brown-green-gold leaves with the same disinterested fascination that he offered Akihiko. "No point in not writing if you're gonna stay quiet, you know. You're too quiet these days anyway."

_Am I?_ He isn't surprised.

_Want… _what is this "want"? What kind of _want_ is it that causes this overwhelming ache in his chest? _Beautiful things are loved._

_What is wanting?_

What kind of want pushes his heart into beating, his lungs into breathing?

_Beautiful things are loved._

He wants to give this up, too. But because he can't, he gives his notebook one last unhappy glance before saying, "You're really weird today, Hiroki."

"I'm not", says Hiroki with a new sharpness to his voice. "You're the weird one." The leaves continue to spin; some recklessly, some gracefully, some with both heady recklessness and grace. Akihiko envies them all. _They're beautiful, too. I wish you'd look at me again._

"No, you are", he laughs. There's no real mirth there, but he's still surprised by an undercurrent of playfulness that he hadn't put in by himself. "You're really, _really_ weird today." He has the faintest suspicion that he's going to begin babbling in a moment. "You're—"

"You're an idiot."

_Is this some sort of game?_ Hiroki's eyes are back on him now, regarding him with total and utter amusement. _At least… I think it's amusement. I don't know. I thought I knew you by heart._

_Still need work._

Of course he does, he thinks miserably. _Beautiful things are loved…_

"Well, you're stupid", he says.

Hiroki lets loose a grudging, gravelly laugh. "No one's ever accused _me_ of being stupid."

"And you're the only one I know who seems to think I'm an idiot", Akihiko replies dryly. "We're even." _But that doesn't change the fact that you're really weird today._

_You're really beautiful today, Hiroki._

"I don't think you're an idiot, I know it."

_Want._

"If you know it, prove it", Akihiko smiles. He doesn't know why he's smiling. It's probably because Hiroki's right, but it's probably because he's crossed his stumbling block at last.

Hiroki shrugs, "You'll prove it to yourself someday."

_I know it already,_ Akihiko doesn't say. He doesn't even think it. He's far too occupied with thinking, _You're beautiful._

"Hiroki", he says softly. _Don't hear me. Please don't hear me._

"What is it?"

"Nothing." It isn't the first time he's hated himself, so what the hell.

"And you say I'm weird", Hiroki mutters after a minute of silence. "What's with you today?"

_What's with me? What's with _you_?_ What's with the _want_ that tugs so insistently at his chest, like an ache, like a dream waiting to be seen?

His smile's faded already, he realizes, as though from a great distance. _And you say I'm the idiot._

"You are." _Did I just say that aloud?_ "But you're weird, too. Is everything okay, Akihiko?"

"What's your take on beautiful things?" he hears himself say. His eyes widen not long after, but he already knows it's okay. He had to say something, _anything_ to prevent the concern in Hiroki's voice from growing, and there were far worse things he could have let slip.

"Beautiful… things?" Hiroki's voice is odd. "_That's_ what's got you so crazy?"

He's still looking at Akihiko, eyes big and brown like Akihiko had never known the meaning of the word before. Never known just what could be embodied by the word _beautiful._ By the _brown_ of Hiroki's unrelenting, unshakeable stare. By this _want_ that's going to kill him, consume him, or both.

_How beautiful can something be before it can no longer be called beautiful?_

_How deep can a want be before it can be called love?_

"Yeah", Akihiko says hoarsely. "What's your opinion on beautiful things?"

"What's _your_ opinion?" Hiroki asks, flipping onto his stomach in one lithe motion and sending up little dust clouds in the process. For no good reason, Akihiko waits until the air clears before speaking again. He wants Hiroki to be looking at him forever. "I think beautiful things are loved", he says at last.

"Really…" and just like that, Hiroki's gaze shifts to the long, soft grass below him. "Never thought of it that way, myself."

Akihiko is unable to sound anything but surprised. "There's another way to think of it?"

His friend's raised eyebrows say _if there hadn't been, why did you ask me?_ but his eyes, even when resting so on something as maddeningly inconsequential as grass, are gentle. "Yeah. I've always thought that things are beautiful because they're loved."

_Things are beautiful because they're loved…_

Because _they're loved?_

_How beautiful can something be before it can no longer be called beautiful?_

"I see", he whispers, giving up at last. "You're beautiful."

Even the leaves stop moving.

Everything is silent; everything is still. Everything except for the beating of his own heart and the awestruck ramblings of his own mind. _You're beautiful. You're beautiful because I…_

_Beautiful things are loved…._

_Want…_

_Want._

_Want—_

"Akihiko?"

_Please be looking at me. Please._

He can't take it anymore. He can't wait. He's only aware of the soft roughness of Hiroki's collar beneath his clutching hands—rough, rough like his voice, soft like his lips—and then it's gone. It's melted into the feel of those lips against his. It may be only the second time he's done this, but like last time, it's all he can do now; everything he's ever wanted, everything he's ever found beautiful seems to be right here in his arms.

_It's not just want._

He can never remember just when the kiss breaks, but the next thing he's aware of is his own words, choked out against Hiroki's limp, trembling shoulder. "You're beautiful. Damn it. _Please_ don't look at anything else."

_Things are beautiful because they're loved, after all._

His eyes sting with unashamed relief as he feels a second pair of hands rest on his back. They're unsteady, just like him. They're warm, unlike him. He can't see them right now—he can't see anything through the clenched darkness of his eyelids—but he knows they're beautiful. "Promise me", he whispers.

With the sudden sweetness of Hiroki's face against his, he knows that giving up was the only way he would win.

"Yes. I promise."


	2. For a Little While

_Two: For a Little While_

oOo

***casually posts 1700+ words of description porn* I am not even sorry. He's gorgeous.**

oOo

Hiroki's hands are in his, separated by the slick of their mingled sweat, clenching and unclenching around Akihiko's own trembling fingers in time with the motions of the taller boy's tongue as it moves over unmarked skin.

He is falling. They both are. Pressed against each other under the largest tree in their little clearing, they fall.

_I have been falling from the start._

When he surfaces for air, he closes his eyes and listens. There is much to hear, surrounded by whispering leaves and birdcalls in the blaze of the evening sky, but all he knows—all he can know—are the bitten-down gasps, the unrestrainable heartbeat that can only be Hiroki.

_Music. You are music and dance and fragrance and fire. You are beautiful. You are mine._

"Akihiko." The gruff voice sounds equally amused and breathless, and Akihiko is visited by a surge of joy so blindingly sweet that he cannot even try to hide his smile. "Akihiko, don't fall asleep on me."

"I'm not sleepy", he replies, a laugh bubbling beneath his words like seaside foam. "I just—I like this. Let's stay like this."

Wandering through their bodies like this, he can almost stop thinking of the little ache in his stomach. "Just for a little while", he mumbles.

His forehead rests on Hiroki's and he can feel the smaller boy's eyebrows twitch fleetingly with either surprise or irritation before settling back down. Then the hands slide out of his grasp, leaving a sudden cold in their wake; before he can protest, they have descended on his hair, stroking with an abstracted care that is as focused as it is lost.

_You're thinking again._

The sudden urge to lay his head on his friend's chest—yes, his friend, for he has never been able to think of Hiroki otherwise—comes and goes. _Stop thinking. I don't want you to be anywhere but here right now._ _Stay with me._

They're back, the feelings that never left are back; the need to kiss, to tease, to own.

He is sitting with Hiroki's legs on either side of him, trying not to look at the hardness that rages through dark uniform pants—not so far from his own pleading bulge—and his eyes are drawn irresistibly to the sweaty cling of black fabric to the smaller boy's thighs. _You're sweating all over. _The spring is gentle, nowhere near hot enough to make anyone sweat like this, but Akihiko does not need that assurance to know that he is responsible for every bead of perspiration on this body.

_I want... to connect every sweatdrop with my fingers. I want to see it run off your back in streams._

Hiroki hisses softly as Akihiko's hands tiptoe up to his face. "Your hands", he says in response to the inquiring violet eyes. "They're always so cold, damn it."

It is far from news to him. "I'm sorry", Akihiko whispers. "I do try to keep them warm."

_Can you warm them up, Hiroki? _he wonders in the microspace before their lips meet again. _Can I trust your fire to thaw the ice in me?_

_I want you to try._

_I want you._

The words still hurt him to so much as think them; they coil, small but heavy, in the pit of his stomach. He does not know how much longer he will be able to handle the ache.

So he lets them out the instant his mouth is his to use again, panting them against his friend's blood-pink face. They tumble awkwardly from his lips with none of the seriousness they deserve, but Akihiko knows Hiroki will understand. He slams his eyes shut, willing them not to tear up with desperation, and _prays_ he will understand.

He feels the answer swirl on his skin before his ears can catch it. "When?" His eyes open to astonishingly lucid brown ones and Hiroki, unreadable, repeats, "I asked you when."

_Oh god, right now. Anytime. Always. Forever. Never._

It is an unfair struggle to form words like this, Akihiko thinks dizzily. After a moment of heaving silence, he manages a tight "When do _you..._" before shaking his head and letting it drop feebly onto Hiroki's shoulder.

_You are beautiful._

"Hey now", Hiroki is saying softly, his fingers still tangled in damp silver hair. "What's gotten into you, Akihiko?"

_I'm on fire._

_I'm falling._

"I want you", Akihiko gasps into the white of his friend's shirt. Surrounded by the overwhelming smell of Hiroki—that pure, distinctive smell that sings through the sweat he feels on his face—there is little he can do but say what has been plaguing him.

_Why do words hurt when I need to use them most?_

The hands in his hair have stopped moving and Hiroki mutters, "Has anyone ever told you that you're an idiot?"

_Am I an idiot for wanting you?_

"If I'm an idiot", he says quietly, "you're stupid." _Stupid and incredibly intelligent and talented and painfully beautiful. You're stupid and I want you._ "But you're right. I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot that"—a flash of inspiration, a slash of mischief—"I should change my name to _Bakahiko._"

It's worth it just to hear the laugh, to feel it rumble beneath Hiroki's skin. Akihiko smiles.

"You haven't answered my question, 'Bakahiko'."

Something in the tone of the gravelly voice causes Akihiko to say, "That's not your only question though, is it?"

_When indeed?_

"Answer this first and we'll get to the next ones later", Hiroki replies, but the taller boy feels the motionless pair of hands give away a rising heartbeat and is happier for it.

_When?_

_Always. Any time. Any time at all..._

_Even if it is for a little while..._

"Tomorrow?" he asks weakly. Even sitting on the long, bendy grass with his head supported by a bony shoulder, he feels ready to collapse. The need to touch is eating him.

Another laugh. But Akihiko does not have to listen with any degree of care to detect the tremble in Hiroki's voice as he says, "That's settled, then."

Does he dare feel this relief just yet?

"What's settled?" his own hands are fisting handfuls of grass now, shaking wildly enough—almost as wildly as his voice, but not quite—to uproot them altogether. He feels Hiroki's chest rise and fall in a quiet sigh. "What you said, stupid. Tomorrow. It's settled. Now put that much out of your head and for fuck's sake _stop worrying._"

_Oh_.

"Alright..."

_I really am such an idiot..._

"I'm not finished", Hiroki is saying lightly. _Why do you sound so... so relaxed, so unconcerned... Why am I the one going to pieces?_ "What do you want to do?"

Ah, but... _you're not really all that relaxed._

_You beautiful thing, you. __Oh, god, I am an idiot._

A thought unfurls. _I want to write you a love letter._ It helps him chuckle as his fingers skate across the small of Hiroki's back, just above the belt, tracing blind patterns on the sweat-soaked shirt with a touch light enough to tickle.

_The relief is kicking in at last._ "Goddamn it, Hiroki", he breathes gratefully, aware that he would not have been able to say this minutes ago, "you _know_ what I want."

_I want you to melt me._

"I suppose I do." Without warning, the hands leave his hair; he is assailed by that familiar coldness just before they return, this time to his face, and lift it up until he is looking squarely into Hiroki's grave eyes. "What I don't know, Akihiko, is _why._"

_Why..._

_There is no why..._

_You don't know why I want you?_

For a moment, the shutters in those honey-brown orbs give way just a little and Akihiko can see it: the confusion, the genuine curiosity. _You really have no idea._

_It hurts._

It hurts more than his unspoken desire, far more than anything he has ever experienced, and he knows that his words cannot fail him this time.

"It's impossible", Akihiko mumbles at last, willing himself to keep his eyes open, to hold his friend's gaze. _I cannot be blind now._ "It's just impossible to see you—to know you like this—and not—and not—"

_I've never really said it, have I?_

"—and not fall completely in love with you."

Taking advantage of Hiroki's momentary shock, he brushes their lips together again. Anything to distract himself from the dull heat creeping up his face. _Don't just sit there._ His hands wrestle with the impulse to slip beneath the untucked shirt and just have done with it. _Don't be so surprised, Hiroki._ His mouth travels upward, skimming over a pink forehead and a straight nose; when it finds Hiroki's lips again, they are quivering.

_Say something,_ he pleads silently as his arms wind tighter around the person he loves like he is only just discovering what love truly means. _Please._

When Hiroki does speak, his voice is plaintive. "Akihiko, you are the biggest idiot to ever have walked this earth."

"We both know that", Akihiko replies petulantly. "I just gave you one hell of a confession and that's all you have to say?"

"I'm sorry" is all Hiroki seems to be able to say in response; he sounds so winded that the taller boy is hard-pressed not to giggle. "Say what you want, but you're stupid."

To his delight, he sees nimble fingers twitch reflexively, as though reaching for a book to throw. The fiery brown head, however, only nods in resigned agreement before flopping onto Akihiko's pounding chest. "I'm sorry", Hiroki whispers. "I _am_ stupid."

_Hiroki... it's alright, Hiroki..._

There is no flinch this time as his hands rub little circles on the narrow back in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.

"I'm fine", Hiroki is saying now even as his knuckles whiten around fistfuls of Akihiko's shirt. "Just... let me lean on you for a little while." It's sweat, the large wet drop that just fell onto his lap is sweat. For Hiroki's sake Akihiko will believe that it is sweat until he dies.

But the spring is gentle; their secret place in an ocean of trees is ablaze with thawing ice.

_Just a little while, then_. "For as long as you want, Hiroki."


End file.
